Pages

Monday, 18 June 2012

Little boy

The 1997 El Nino seen by TOPEX/Poseidon US/French satellite

El Niño is when the sea water temperature rises in surface waters of the tropical Pacific Ocean. Every two to five years the Pacific Ocean has an event called El Niño Southern Oscillation (ENSO).It lasts for only a few weeks to a month or more. Every three to seven years, an El Niño event may last for many months. This can change the weather and have important effects on economies around the world. Australia and Southeast Asia can have drought but the deserts of Peru have very heavy rainfall. East Africa can have both. In a La Nina event the weather patterns are reversed.

"El Nino, an abnormal warming of waters in the equatorial tropical Pacific, is linked with poor rains or a drought-like situation in southeast Asia and Australia."

"The La Nina weather pattern, which is associated with heavy rains in south Asia and flooding in the Asia-Pacific region and South America, and drought in Africa, ended in March."

Even the signs for el-nino is there, Mon’soon’ getting ‘late’, Low pressure region is occurred in north pacific, and hot stream is flowing from west pacific, Indian ocean to pacific ocean region. It may cause drought threat to India, Indonesia, Australia and Peru.

The June-September monsoon, vital for agricultural output and economic growth, irrigates around 60 percent of farms in India, the world's second-biggest producer of rice, wheat, sugar and cotton. Agriculture accounts for about 15 percent of India's nearly $2 trillion economy, Asia's third biggest.

How ever, "Rains could be normal this year due to the absence of any strong signal that could inhibit occurrence of a healthy monsoon," L S Rathore, director-general of the state-run India Meteorological Department (IMD), told in an interview.

A monsoon with average rains would boost grains output, helping Prime Minister Manmohan Singh's coalition government keep inflation under check and boosting the faltering economy.

India's economy grew by 6.1 per cent in the December quarter, its slowest in almost three years. To accelerate that, the central bank on Tuesday cut interest rates for the first time since 2009.